TO CATCH A WOLF

by Susan Krinard

  TO CATCH A WOLF

  By

  Susan Krinard

  To

  CATCH A WOLF

  Susan Krinard

  BERKLEY SENSATION, NEW YORK

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  TO CATCH A WOLF

  A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation edition / September 2003

  Copyright © 2003 by Susan Krinard

  Cover design by George Long

  Cover art by Franco Accornero

  The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 0-425-19208-3

  A BERKLEY SENSATION™ BOOK

  Berkley Sensation Books are published by

  The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY SENSATION and the "B" design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  Prologue

  Canon City, Colorado, 1875

  Free.

  Morgan paused just outside the gates of the Territorial Penitentiary, staring through the bars at the cold, hard faces of the men who had kept him caged for the last five years. He knew that their blank expressions hid relief—relief that the one prisoner they couldn't break was leaving their jurisdiction.

  They'd stopped trying to beat him after the first year, because he gave them no reason other than their dislike of his silence. They left him almost entirely alone after the second year, and so did the other convicts. Even though he never attempted escape, they kept him in his cell all but an hour each day, and let him out only under heavy guard with half a dozen rifles trained at his head.

  He'd learned how to keep his sanity when the scents of wood and river came to him through the barred window. He'd learned to exist in a place where everything he had been died a slow and lingering death.

  It was easier than the one his father had suffered.

  With no possessions but memory and the clothes upon his back, he turned away from the high stone walls. The road led east, to the town of Canon City with its houses and shops and saloons. To the west rose the peaks of the Sangre de Cristos, and to the north Pike's Peak and Colorado Springs. The border with New Mexico Territory lay a hundred miles to the south, as the crow flies.

  The road that had led him to Colorado in search of his father had begun in the west, in California. But his mother and sister were no longer waiting in the little mountain cabin. Four years after his trial and incarceration in various jails and then here at the Territorial Penitentiary, he had received the one letter of his nine-year term.

  His uncle Jonas had been brief. Edith Holt was dead, and his sister Cassidy had gone with Jonas to his ranch in New Mexico. There she would have a decent upbringing away from the unsavory influence of her kin.

  Cassidy had been six when Morgan left. She would be a woman now, familiar with courting and kissing and all the things Morgan had missed. She might even have started a family of her own. She'd have no place in her life for an ex-convict.

  Better that Cassidy should forget he ever existed. He had no family. He was alone. And he would remain alone.

  There were many ways to be alone in Colorado. Not every valley was a booming mining town, nor was every hill swarming with eager prospectors. There were places where wolves still avoided the hunters' guns and traps.

  That was where Morgan would go. North, and west, into the high mountains, the deep valleys. There he would forget he had ever been a man.

  His feet, so used to measuring the dimensions of his cell, were slow to remember what it was to stride. Autumn dust rose in little puffs about his dilapidated shoes. He stepped out of the shapeless leather and kicked the shoes away.

  He walked a hundred paces down the road and turned north where only animal trails marked the path. No one called after him, neither a curse nor a farewell. He dismissed the humans from his mind.

  Time as men measured it had long since lost its meaning. He walked for many days, drinking from trickling streams and springs and rivers, eating what he sensed was fit and safe. Where men made their stink of waste and metal, he passed by unseen. The season they called Indian summer lingered well into the mountains. Golden leaves rustled under his feet. Then snow fell, and he shook off the cold as he had done in the years of captivity.

  At last there came a day when he heard the wolves howl.

  The scent of men did not reach here. The air stung his nostrils with the promise of winter, and turned to fog with each breath.

  He looked up at the unbarred sky and howled. The wolves answered. They came, silent to any who walked on two legs. When they ringed him in, hackles raised and teeth bared, he stripped off the remains of his ragged clothing and walked among them without fear. As they shrank back, he Changed.

  The wolves recognized him, though they had surely never seen his like before. They crouched low in obeisance. The mated pair who led the pack whined anxiously, and he told them in a language they understood that he would not usurp their sovereignty as long as he shared the fate of the pack.

  So they welcomed him. He made himself known to each wolf in turn, his black-furred shoulders rising above those of the others, twice the height of the smallest beast. Then he sent them away, and became a man for the last time.

  He gathered his discarded clothing and laid them in a neat pile upon the virgin ground. With his hands he dug a deep hole, placed the shirt and trousers inside, and smoothed the dirt over the remnants of his humanity.

  A snowflake kissed Morgan's shoulder. Another joined it, and its kinfolk danced and spun out of the sky to offer a final benediction. He ran his fingers over his face, feeling the gauntness and the sharp planes, the scar where a fellow inmate had stabbed him through the cheek and left only the slightest mark. There would be no such mark on the wolf. And the weight in his chest, so long ignored, would shrivel and be forgotten.

  With a shrug of his shoulders, he Changed. Snowflakes caught in his fur. The richness of the forest poured over him and embraced him.

  Howls rose from the nearest slope. He answered and broke into a lope, covering the broken ground effortlessly. The years sloughed away one by one, like human skin and bone, until his heart lay naked to the world. It froze into a lump of ice, untouched and untouchable.

  Now he was truly free.

  Chapter 1

  Denver, Colorado, June 1880

  One by one the members of the Ladies' Aid Society rose from their chairs and sofas in the Munroes' grand parlor and took leave of their hostess. Narrow silk and brocade skirts rustled, confining legs that seldom found practical use save to convey their owners from mansion to carriage and from carriage to shop.

  Athena Sophia Munroe did not rise to see her guests to the door. She extended her gloved hand and accepted the offered farewells like a queen upon a throne. A queen as luxuriously confined as the most favored consort in a pasha's harem.

  She smiled and found a compliment for each lady in turn, listening to their chatter as Brinkley led them into the hall.

  Cecily Hockensmith lingered, waving her fan indolently against the hot, dry air.

  "What is to be done about this awful heat?" she exclaimed. "Everyone advised us to go to the mountains for the summer, but Papa did not wish to miss any business opport
unities." She made a moue of distaste. "Business, always business. Is it not frightfully dull?"

  "The men do not seem to find it so," Athena said. She thought of Niall, hard at work in some stifling office while she sat at her ease at home. "It is true that many families do leave the city in the summer. That is why our attendance today was less than it would be at other times. In the autumn, we will have our full complement again."

  Miss Hockensmith closed her eyes and sighed. "We always went to Newport during the summers in New York. Ah, those fresh ocean breezes. How pleasant it was."

  Athena nodded with polite sympathy. "It must seem very different in Denver, with the ocean so far away."

  "Have you ever visited the sea, my dear?"

  "I am afraid not. I was to attend school in the east, but—"

  "You must go one day, Miss Munroe. You cannot miss it."

  Athena imagined herself by the waves, breathing in the salt air and letting the water bathe her feet. The picture was so enticing that it hurt.

  "I would like to take the orphans to the ocean," she said quickly. "They would appreciate it more than anyone."

  "Ah, yes, the dear orphans." Miss Hockensmith grew serious, meeting Athena's gaze with an air of troubled concern. "I hope you won't mind a bit of sisterly advice. I have been observing you ever since our arrival, Miss Munroe. I confess that I have never seen anyone work as tirelessly as you on behalf of the masses. Why, even our greatest philanthropists in New York did not become so… personally involved in such work."

  Athena straightened in her chair. "You compliment me too highly, Miss Hockensmith. I do little enough, and I have the assistance of many others. It seems to me that it is our duty, as the more fortunate, to do what we can to aid the less."

  Miss Hockensmith raised a plucked brow. "Naturally. But the orphanage, the fallen women, the unemployed men in Globeville and Swansea—are you quite sure that you have not taken on too much, my dear?" Her dark eyes sparkled with compassion. "I fear that you will exhaust yourself with the Winter Ball, among so many other ventures. You know that I would be more than happy to assist you. I had much experience with organizing affairs of this sort in New York. And I do so wish to help the dear little orphans."

  Athena looked up at Cecily, at her height and presence and midnight-black hair above a pale, lovely face. The lady was used to being ruler in her own kingdom, and who could blame her? She had sacrificed a great deal to come to Denver with her father.

  "Of course," Athena said. "Your advice and experience will be most welcome. I shall need everyone's help to make the second Winter Ball a success equal to last year's."

  "It is a shame that we had not yet come to town then," Cecily said, "but I am sure you made an excellent job of it. Certainly your ballroom is one of the finest I have seen in Denver… for a modest gathering. How you must enjoy dancing in it."

  Athena made a slight adjustment to her perfectly arranged skirts as if some part of her might have been exposed by an inadvertent motion. She was grateful for Cecily's oblivious comment; far better these occasional pricks than the slash of pity.

  Denver society no longer had reason to pity her. Had she not proven herself capable of contributing as much as anyone in her work for those less fortunate? Was her formal parlor not one of the most stylish and tasteful in Denver? Did not the wives and daughters of her brother's colleagues trust her judgment on everything from the latest Paris fashions to the hiring of servants?

  I am no different than any of them. No different.

  "But oh, how thoughtless of me," Cecily said. "Pray do not think—" With a show of confusion, Cecily created a minor hurricane with her fan. "It was not my intention to remind you—"

  "Please, Miss Hockensmith. Do not distress yourself. I assure you that I am not in the least offended by the subject of dancing." She laughed lightly. "It is a ball, after all! And you are a most elegant dancer."

  Cecily Hockensmith had perfected the fine art of the blush. "You flatter me, Miss Munroe. It is only natural that a woman should dance well when provided with a superlative partner."

  Athena knew to whom Miss Hockensmith referred. Athena made it a point to take note of every ripple in the generally calm waters that made up Denver's elite social circle. The stylish lady from New York—as yet unmarried—had paid particular notice to Niall from the first. It was no wonder. Niall Munroe was a handsome man of dignified bearing and considerable assets.

  But Niall had not reciprocated the interest, though he had courteously danced with Cecily at Mrs. William Byers's anniversary ball. Nor was he a particularly fine dancer. Business had prevented him from mastering such niceties.

  Inwardly, Athena sighed. What was she to do with Niall? Could Miss Hockensmith be the right woman for him?

  The mere thought was uncomfortable. But why? There was much to admire in Miss Hockensmith, and her father might become Niall's new business partner. You will be seeing much of her now that they have settled in Denver. Perhaps we will become great friends. How wonderful it would be if I could help Niall and Miss Hockensmith find happiness…

  Cheered at the notion, Athena pushed aside her faint unease and pressed Cecily's hand. "I doubt that you shall find a shortage of partners at the Winter Ball."

  "Thank you, Miss Munroe. But please consider my offer of help. I should not wish you to tire yourself. Your brother did mention that you work much too hard."

  Niall again. "Do you not have a brother, Miss Hockensmith? You know how they are. I think they must secretly believe that no sister ever grows up to be a woman."

  "And a woman such as yourself would not wish to remain dependent. I admire your courage." Cecily closed her fan. "Nevertheless, do call upon me at any time, Miss Munroe."

  "Athena, please. We are such a small circle in Denver."

  "And formality is best reserved for those outside it." Athena had the brief, uncharitable thought that Cecily must have practiced her perfect smile before a mirror. "I am certain we shall become bosom friends, dear Athena."

  "Then I look forward to seeing you at our next meeting."

  With a graceful turn, Cecily swept to the door. Athena admired the way she moved so that her form-fitting skirts maintained a column almost undisturbed by the motion of her legs.

  As if she had no need of legs at all.

  Athena wheeled her chair to the window and drew back the curtains. All of the carriages had gone, even Cecily's. Not one of the ladies would consider walking home, though most lived within a few blocks of the fashionable quarter along Fourteenth Street.

  Would they choose to walk tonight if they might never walk again?

  You are morbid this evening, she chided herself. Niall will soon be home.

  And Niall deserved peace and tranquillity after a long day of business. Athena deftly maneuvered her wheelchair to the kitchen to consult Monsieur Savard about the evening's dinner. She rearranged the roses displayed on a low rosewood table in the marble and oak-paneled entry hall, and spoke with the housekeeper regarding the new chambermaid and the hiring of a laundress to replace the woman who had returned to her native France.

  When all was completed to her satisfaction, she took up her usual place at her secretary in the private sitting room and began to sort through the various letters, invitations, and responses to her charitable campaigns. She basked in each small victory and refused to regard the minor failures. Where the orphans were concerned—or the unmarried mothers, or the poor men up by the smelters, looking for work—she could be remarkably persistent. She had something to fight for.

  Something that was beyond herself and her petty problems.

  In the hall outside the front door opened, and Athena heard the boom of her brother's voice, followed by the cultured tenor of Brinkley's. Niall strode into the room, a typical look of preoccupation on his handsome face. He paused just inside the door and noticed Athena with vague surprise, as if he did not find her waiting in precisely the same place every evening.

  "Good evening, Niall
," she said. "How was your day?"

  "Very good, thank you. And yours?"

  It was the comforting ritual they always followed, though seldom had either one something truly noteworthy to report. Niall ran their father's business and handled Athena's inheritance, providing her with a very liberal allowance; she, in turn, kept the house and played hostess when his business associates gathered for dinner or a sociable meeting.

  But there were times, like this evening, when Athena felt a treacherous yearning for something more. If only Niall would take some real interest in her activities…

  "It went quite well," she said. "The Aid Society met to discuss the Winter Ball—"

  "That's months away," he said, pouring his usual whiskey at the sideboard.

  "Yes. But the Munroe successes have always come from excellent planning. I only follow your and Papa's examples." She smiled to take the challenge from her words. "I regard my work as worthy of such care."

  Niall downed his drink. "I'm not so sure that the beneficiaries of your charity are worthy of your efforts—or the money you spend on them." He poured another drink and frowned at the inoffensive glass. "You are much too generous."

  Athena retained her smile. Niall had always been blunt, and this was hardly a new argument. "We agreed long ago that you would make the money, and I would see that some portion of it went to help the less fortunate, according to my own judgment."

  "A judgment based upon emotion and sentimentality."

  Athena wheeled closer to him and touched his sleeve. "What is it, Niall? Is something troubling you?"

  He set the second drink down untouched and looked directly at her. "One of those 'fallen women' you attempted to reform was caught trying to steal the wallet of a very influential financier from Chicago."

  "One of my girls? How do you know?"

  "When she was caught, she blurted out your name. She seemed to think that you would intercede for her." He swept up the glass and downed the contents quickly. "It was not a pleasant circumstance to hear my sister's name on the lips of a whore."